Fawcett E.D. - Evolution and Natural Selection

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Evolution and Natural Selection

Edward Douglas Fawcett

(English: E. Douglas Fawcett, Evolution and Natural Selection)

Publications:

• Lucifer, vol. 2, no. 11, July 1888, pp. 369-376

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Title for references: Fawcett E.D. - Evolution and Natural Selection
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Evolution and Natural Selection

A CRITICISM AND A SUGGESTION.

The relation of Darwinism to the general concept of Evolution – Spencer on modern Darwinism – Haeckel’s view – What Evolution really owes to Darwin – Anticipations of Natural Selection, Wallace, Wells and Herbert – The scope assigned to Natural Selection – Tyndall on the duty of scientific critics – Professor Bain on N. S. – Herbert Spencer’s recent criticism in “The Factors of Organic Evolution” – Schmidt, Büchner and Haeckel on the same – Dixon on “Evolution without Natural Selection” – Mr. G. J. Romanes on “Physiological Selection”; his limitation of the Darwinian factor as explanatory of the “Origin of Species” – Summary of recent emendations – Spencer’s powerful thrust – Probing the expression “Natural Selection” – The “rift in the lute” – “Spontaneous variations” as the quantité negligeable of Darwinism – Haeckel’s Pedigree of man – Can Natural Selection “evolve”? – its complete dependency on the variations of structure – A Biological Cossack – Not an originative but a registrative factor – Full exposition of the point – Rehabilitation of the idea of an inherent law of development – Professor Owen and Albert Gaudry – Von Hartmann’s “Truth and Error in Darwinism” – Proofs – Cases inexplicable by Natural Selection – The vertebrate and molluscan eye – Dr. A. Wilson on structure of the cuttlefish head – Haeckel on mechanical causality – Darwin’s marine ancestor of man; the great puzzle – A. R. Wallace on N. S. as explaining only part of human evolution – Concluding remarks.

“On the evidence of palæontology the evolution of many existing forms of animal life from their predecessors is no longer an hypothesis, but an historical fact; it is only the nature of the physiological factors to which that evolution is due which is still open to discussion.”

Professor Huxley.

The dominant position held by Darwinism in modern biology has undoubtedly led many persons to identify a certain phase of the Development-hypothesis with the Development-hypothesis itself. It is strange to note in how many circles this opinion still seems to prevail, but when we bear in mind the importance of the great factor in organic evolution insisted on by Darwin and the extent to which his views have thrown all competing theories into the background, the explanation is not far to seek. Nowadays, as Mr. Herbert Spencer remarks, naturalists are more Darwinian than Darwin himself, relying as they do too exclusively on the sufficiency of the factor which it was his lifework to illustrate. Evolution has consequently become in the eyes of many, a synonym for Darwinism. But to cite Professor Haeckel : –

. . . . “The fundamental principle of Darwin was by no means a new one. It has been formulated already by many philosophers, not only in our own century, but in much earlier times in one form or another. The proofs and arguments that Darwin discovered in favour of his views are new. The vigorous carrying out of the hypothesis in the light of the science of the day – that, also, is new.”

The general Evolution Doctrine is, of course, pre-Darwinian. But the immense debt which biology owes to the great naturalist is based on his

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application of the principle of Natural Selection to the explanation of the phenomena of organic life. He infused new energy into a dream of isolated thinkers, which was fast falling into discredit, by supplying the necessary mechanical basis demanded by physiology. Where Lamarck and Oken attempted to solve the problems of biology by verbal explanations, he proffered a simple and definite theory. It is true, as he himself remarks, that – exclusive of the independent application of Natural Selection by Mr. A. R. Wallace – certain authors such as Dr. Wells and the Hon. W. Herbert had already accounted for sporadic ethnological and botanical phenomena on his own lines. In no instance, however, was the full import of the explanation grasped irrespective of the minute research, the patient skill and “pemmican of fact,” which contribute so largely to the merit of the “Origin of Species.”

Natural Selection is now a “by-word among the nations.” Indefinite variability, the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence – continuous elimination checking a geometrical rate of increase – here we have the Darwinian law in a nutshell. From the specks of protoplasmic monera which overlaid the ocean depths of the Laurentian Epoch up to the civilised philosopher of to-day, all forms of organic life are to be accounted for on this basis, according to the enthusiastic adherents of this system.

It is my intention in this essay to cast a glance over the most recent conclusions on the subject, to examine into the alleged all-sufficiency of Natural Selection, and finally to lay the issue clearly before my readers: – Have we as yet exhausted the list of “factors of organic evolution”? I venture to doubt the soundness of the affirmative answer to this query so often and so confidently returned, holding that science never attains to a realization of the whole truth on any subject except by a series of steps. As Professor Tyndall said, in his celebrated Belfast address, it is, after all, not a question of whether Darwin, Huxley, or Spencer, possess the final truth. Many of their positions may have, one day, to be abandoned. The essential fact which we must recognise is the necessity for the freest speech and the most untrammelled research. It is in this spirit alone that the discussion of such problems should be approached. “Science should have neither desires nor prejudices. Truth should be her sole aim.”

Now, in the case of Natural Selection, we find ourselves face to face with a process which is daily and hourly in operation around us. All criticism, therefore, should bear upon the extent to which this factor may be regarded as explicative of the “how?” of organic development. “This renowned speculation,” writes Professor Bain, “with all its boldness, has the characters of a legitimate hypothesis; it assumes a

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real agency, a vera causa; its difficulties lie in showing that the supposed agent is equal to the vastness of the results.” There is, however, another aspect of this question with which I shortly propose to deal.

One feature of recent polemics is too prominent to escape comment, viz.: – the sharp check experienced by those biologists who have no other factor in their repertory of hypotheses than that of Natural Selection. The highest authority on the matter within these shores – Mr. Herbert Spencer – has not only declared his entire disbelief in the adequacy of this factor to account for the results of evolution, but has even gone so far as to stigmatise it as representative of no physical cause at all in the strict sense of the term. He writes: –

“The phrases employed in discussing organic evolution, though convenient and indeed needful, are liable to mislead us by veiling the actual agencies. . . . The words “Natural Selection” do not express a cause in the physical sense. They express a mode of co-operation among causes, or rather, to speak strictly, they express an effect of this mode of co-operation.”

Such language from the pen of the author of the “Principles of Biology” is certainly somewhat startling. Mr. Spencer does not, however, proceed to fill up the gap in the list of factors with any marked approximation to originality, though his illustrations of existing evolutionist problems are of great value. He recognises, indeed, such additional causes as “use and disuse,” the direct influence of the environment, etc., but Darwin himself, many years ago, admitted as much in the earliest editions of his work. The essay is, however, instructive as typical of an incipient re-action against the view that the causes of evolution had been once and for all ascertained and docketed. In this connection we may note that such authoritative writers as Schmidt, Büchner and Haeckel have been uniformly consistent in maintaining the necessary incompleteness of any theory which regards Natural Selection as the sole constructive agent in the origination of species. More recently, Mr. Charles Dixon in his “Evolution without Natural Selection,” has added “Isolation,” “Climate” and a few other minor causes to the growing list of emendations on the original cast of the forces operative in the drama of life.

More definite still is the hypothesis lately put forward by Mr. G. J. Romanes, F.R.S. – that of “Physiological Selection.” This distinguished biologist regards the cardinal difficulties of Darwinism “considered as a theory of the origin of species,” as three in number. (1.) The difference between natural species and domesticated varieties in respect of fertility. (2.) The fact that the features which distinguish allied species have frequently no utilitarian significance, and cannot hence be attributed to

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Natural Selection. (3.) The “swamping influence upon an incipient variety of free intercrossing . . . . if we add to this consideration . . . . the difficulty elaborated by Professor Mivart as to the improbability of a variation being from the first of sufficient utility to come under the influence of natural selection, I feel it impossible to doubt that a most formidable opposition is presented.” Mr. Romanes holds that Natural Selection constitutes no legitimate theory of the origin of species, though it does, indeed, of adaptations. “In thus seeking to place the theory of natural selection on its true logical footing,” he adds, “I am no way detracting from the importance of that theory. On the contrary I am but seeking to release it from the difficulties with which it has been hitherto surrounded.” He traces the permanent divergence of a variety from its parent species and its preservation from the swamping effect of interbreeding with the latter, to the “barrier” produced by a mutual sterility. This barrier, which is obviously “quite as effectual as a thousand miles of ocean,” supervenes in consequence of variations in the extremely sensitive medium of the reproductive organs, the liability of which to be affected by climatic or dietetic changes is notorious. Interesting and in many respects satisfactory as the above hypothesis appears to be, I am more concerned at present to instance the more notable departures from orthodox evolutionism than to examine into their respective merits – a truly enormous subject. Suffice it to say that they may all be accepted as supplementary to Natural Selection, and in no case tend to grapple with what seems to be the vital postulate of Evolutionism. Putting aside, therefore, all considerations as to the validity of such emendated versions of the current development hypothesis, let us proceed to inquire into the precise implication of the expression “Natural Selection.”

Some very important aspects of the latter demanded a more exhaustive treatment than they have hitherto received.

The frequent designation of an organ or species as “evolved by natural selection” is not without its drawback. It tends to personify a metaphor – to entify an abstraction one is almost tempted to say. Mr. Spencer, as previously noted, well observes that “the phrases employed in discussing organic evolution, though convenient and indeed needful, are liable to mislead us by veiling the actual agencies.” Probing this sentence to the quick, we note that the philosopher of Agnosticism is in reality impatient of that general tendency to substitute phrases for thoughts, which is exemplified in the loose language of many writers on Evolution. What then is the strict connotation of the expression “evolved by natural selection”? Simply that out of a certain aggregate of geometrically-multiplying organisms only those survive which possess special structural or mental advantages, or it may be their incipient stages. Exactly. How then with regard to origination of such variations in the

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first instance? We now find ourselves face to face with some interesting considerations.

“Natural Selection,” strictly speaking, is but a verbal entity symbolising an effect produced by a concurrence of heterogeneous causes. The best organised members of a group of animals or plants are alone predicated to survive and transmit their advantages to the future breed. The process thus christened by Darwin, as being analogous to the conscious selection exercised by man in domesticating animals, originates nothing; it only seizes upon and diffuses at large among the descendants of a species such useful material in the way of variation as the ancestral organisms themselves have provided it with. It tends to universalise individual advantages, thus registering idiosyncrasies for the benefit of a group. But in ultimate analysis it is apparent that so far from explaining the whole rationale of Evolution, “Natural Selection” leaves the essential factor in the matter still an unfathomed mystery. The crucial query suggests itself – whence sprung the stimulus to those variations which supply “Natural Selection” with its pabulum?

“Ay! there’s the rub.”

The point, then, on which I am anxious to lay stress is the following, viz.: – That in reality it is the so-called spontaneous variations which produce the harvest of complex forms, animal and vegetable; and that Natural Selection merely subserves the function of registering for the breed the beneficial changes as they turn up. Take, for instance, the Haeckelian pedigree of Man. If it is, in any sense, valid, we have to regard Homo Sapiens as the lineal descendant of palaeozoic “monera.” The distinguished German scientist alluded to frequently speaks of Man’s physical structure as “evolved by Natural Selection.” Is this a permissible use of language?

Surely not. No modification can spring from Natural Selection, which, as Mr. Spencer shows, is not a physical cause initiating physiological changes. “Natural Selection” is, at the best, only a registrative as opposed to an originative process, and does not even represent an unvarying combination of agencies. It is an effect resulting from the co-operation of the heterogeneous causes which go to make up what is termed the “struggle for existence”; and the conditions of this struggle vary with the special geographical areas in which its presence is discipherable. How vague and shadowy, then, is this factor, which was once deemed all-explanatory? Its action is seen to be limited to the elimination of inferior organisms. It teaches us nothing with regard to the general advance of form since the structural variations, which accomplish this end, antecede the stage at which the survival of the fittest supervenes. Before Natural Selection can weed out the feeble and preserve the superior members of a species, the material to be sifted must be forthcoming. Millions, ay, myriads, of organisms may perish, but no evolutionary advance is possible unless

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favourable structural variations put in an appearance. The deep sea Bathybii may “struggle for existence” through aeons of geological time, but à quoi bon? Their rudimentary stage of organisation is stereotyped, unless new physiological characteristics spontaneously appear in their midst. No amount of “selection” can evolve a type on to a higher level, if no change worthy of selection presents itself. This, at least, is clear.

We may perhaps compare Natural Selection to a biological Cossack, who, by preying on stragglers from the main army of organic advance, prevents the inferior products of Nature’s “’prentice hand” from perpetuating their stock. There its function ends. The existing perfection of organic types is, therefore, not due to Natural Selection per se. It is, due to that quantité negligeable – the “spontaneous variations.” They, in reality, have built up the grand edifice of organic evolution; while that invaluable accessory factor, “Natural Selection,” has been only carrying on a process of eliminating failures from the workshop of Mother Earth. Even supposing that the struggle for existence had never been instituted to serve as the probation and standard of the vitality of species, would not the advance of form due to “spontaneous variability” have equally taken place? Obviously, but in that case the feeble would be co-existent with the strong, the undeveloped with the developed, in a manner which under existing cosmic laws is inconceivable.

But, as things stand, Nature, as Du. Prel says, is her own physician “Natural Selection” is the superficially cruel, but de facto benevolent manner in which she “physicks” her children – species. But this summary treatment of ailments does not assist us much in comprehending how the vigorous portion of her progeny attained their maturity.

The fact that the “spontaneous” variations in organisms, constitute after all the basic factor in evolution, completely rehabilitates the conception as to “an inherent law of development” originally impressed on matter or bound up with what Matthew Arnold has called “the eternal order of things.” This opinion is held in a modified form by Professor Owen and Albert Gaudry. It is, also, defended by the pessimist Von Hartmann, though the standpoint of the “philosopher of the Unconscious” is necessarily different to that favoured by theistic evolutionists in general.

In support of this doctrine as to a pre-determined necessity underlying the main tendency of those variations which, as Darwin says, we call spontaneous “through our ignorance,” numerous facts might be adduced. We know, for instance, that the eyes of cuttlefish and

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vertebrates originated independently in the two types which, in Darwin’s words, “owe none of their structure in common to inheritance from a common progenitor.” Again, in an able essay on the former, Dr. Wilson remarks in allusion to their cephalic development : –

“The presence in the heads of cuttlefishes of the cartilaginous ‘skull,’ in addition to other sundry masses of gristle scattered through the substance of the ‘mantle,’ has just been mentioned as a feature of interest. No possible lines of connection, genetic or otherwise, exist between cuttlefish and vertebrates; yet this ‘skull’ character would at first sight seem to indicate resemblance and relationship of a definite kind between the two groups. But the case before us merely adds one to already known instances in which structures of analogous or similar nature have originated in a perfectly independent fashion.”

Such facts go far to sustain the view that the general lines on which organic evolution proceeds are mapped out in germ in the very nature of things; in short, that as regards the mainstream of “progress from the simple to the complex,” the supposed “indeterminate clash” of unintelligent forces is a pure myth. An inherent vis formativa supplants Professor Haeckel’s conception of “blind forces working without aim, without design.” It is at least strange in this connection to find writers of the materialistic school such as Büchner so glibly disposing of “variation” – that essence of the problem – as “spontaneous” and due to “chance.” If we are free to say that variation is not the quantité négligeable which Darwinism makes of it, we are certainly justified in regarding spontaneity and chance in a “universe of matter, force, and necessity” as flagrant impossibilities.

Let us now analyse the “variation” problem presented by the following speculation culled from Darwin : –

“We should be justified in believing that at an extremely remote period a group of animals existed resembling in many respects the larvæ of our present Ascidians, which diverged into two great branches – the one retrograding in development and producing the present class of Ascidians, the other rising to the crown and summit of the animal kingdom by giving birth to the Vertebrata.”

Now, since Natural Selection merely registers the useful variations in structure, it follows that the striking contrast between these two branches in respect of modification, was due to a luxuriant access of beneficial variations to the one, parallel with a stagnation of growth in the case of the other. From what source sprang the force which determined the origination of the vertebrate phylum from a lowly marine grub? Why was only one branch thus rich with potentiality of progress, while the other positively retrograded? Of all this Natural Selection affords us no ghost or glimmer of an explanation.

Mr. A. R. Wallace has adduced the case of the savage as illustrative of

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the presence of some factor superior to mere mechanical causation in the evolution of Man. He rests this opinion on certain specific “potentialities” inherent in the larynx, hand, and brain of the savage, which are of no utility to their present possessors, but nevertheless anticipate the requirements of the future civilized man – thus lending powerful support to those hypotheses which recognise a provident design in Nature. He found, for instance, that many wild tribes whose actual exercise of intelligence is little superior to that of the orang nevertheless possess large brains out of all proportion to their menta necessities. Unless, therefore, we are to regard such peoples as degraded relics of pre-historic civilizations, a view which obviously would only swell the list of existing evolutionist perplexities anent the supposed animal ancestry of Man, the conclusion is inevitable that such a cerebral development could not have been “produced” by unaided Natural Selection. Anticipatory provision has nothing in common with the automatic utilitarianism of the latter.

This case, however, as many others which admit of citation, assumes a very different aspect when we apply to its solution the idea that the general tendency of organic variability is shaped by some “vis formativa” – the link between the phenomenal universe and the Cosmic Soul. For the universe is buttressed by Thought. The main impress by which the world-plan was stamped into matter prior to the Age of the Fire-Mists or the birth of the elements, is traceable to that Universal Spirit: –

“Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns And the round ocean and the living air And the blue sky and in the mind of man A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought And rolls through all things.”

E. Douglas Fawcett.

Footnotes

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